Coolamon RC Bulletin W/e September 8th 2024

Coolamon Rotary Bulletin for W/e September 8th. 2024

Meeting of Monday 2nd September 2024

President Adrian Lindner welcomed 20 members and our guests were Lorraine Hamilton and Wendy Lindner. Also present were our two guest speakers Cheryl Roberts and Elaine Post from Days for Girls. We had some notices including:

Reminder of the End Polio Now movie on Friday 6th September i.e. this Friday.
Marrar Madness Saturday 7th September.
Paul said that the Coolamon Community Chronicle is now out and thanks go to all who made this possible, another excellent edition.
Annie spoke about the Gears & Beers ANZAC biscuits bake off which will be on the 28th Saturday and Sunday the 29th September at the Coolamon Central School and volunteers are needed.
Paul has published the puzzler for August which is in last week’s bulletin.
Scott told us that the Driver Simulator will be back in Coolamon on Monday the 16th September? Check the date with Scott.
Scott also announced that his farewell will be on Saturday the 14th September at 2.30pm at St. Andrew’s Coolamon for afternoon tea.

After dinner we had our guests present the story on days for Girls.

Lexi Furner introduced our two guest speakers Cheryl Roberts and Elaine Post.

Cheryl led the way and we learnt so much about this wonderful project that is growing.

Cheryl is a team leader for Days for Girls Australia. Cheryl has been a volunteer for 6-7 years now. There are now 100 teams across Australia including the Wagga Wagga team. The Wagga team started 10 years ago.

Days for Girls Facebook Page

Days for Girls Australia is a registered Australian not for profit and is a Country Affiliate with Days for Girls International. Volunteers across Australia mobilize to increase access to menstrual products and vital health information for women and girls around the world.

Cheryl went on to say that:

One in five Australian girls and young women don’t have access to menstrual products as food on teh table comes first. It is called period poverty.
There are myths and taboos around the world causing stigmatisation and shame Cheryl gave some examples in Nepal and PNG.
This created days away from school and work.
Better educated women leads to better educated children.

Elaine then showed us some examples of the user kits that are made by the teams around Australia and Wagga Wagga. These user kits are washable and last up to five years. There are now 540 volunteer teams across the world. Australia distributed 42,000 kits in 2022-2023.

Cheryl concluded the talk by saying that we can help by volunteering and making the project known via social media.

Photo by Father Scott Mudd thanks.

Annie gave a vote of thanks to Cheryl and Elaine for the talk and for educating all present.

N.B. MARRAR MADNESS ROSTER – SATURDAY 7th SEPTEMBER

12.00-3.00 pm: Bear, Ian, Henk, Howard and Myffy

3.00-6.00 pm: Bruce, Dick, Adrian, Bear and Alex

6.00-8.00 pm: Annie, Bear, JJG, Daryl and Gary.

N.B. END POLIO NOW MOVIE NIGHT

Below is the promotion by Kooringal Rotary to screen the movie “Thelma” on Friday 6 Sept as a global fundraiser for End Polio Now.

If you could start checking your availability to attend please, plus inviting family and/or friends (NB day before Marrar Madness). When booking please record CRC for recognising our Coolamon Rotary Club.

N.B. SHELTERBOX BOOROWA RC OFF THE GRID

Off the Grid for ShelterBox Boorowa RC

DIARY

N.B. You are always welcome to bring guests to most of our meetings, just advise Ian Jennings if you want to bring a guest along when you respond to the weekly dinner roll call!

You can download the full programme here and note that it will change and that will be reflected in the weekly bulletin and in The Diary on our website:

CRC Program 24-25

Saturday 7th September – Marrar Madness. Coolamon RC is manning the car park. Volunteers required.

Monday 9th September – Board Meeting. Coolamon Sport Rec. Club, 5.15 pm.

Monday 9th September – Regular Meeting. Coolamon Sport Rec. Club, 6.30pm for 7.00pm.

*Monday 16th September – Guest Speaker Meeting. Arron Hutcheon will be speaking. Coolamon Sport & Rec Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.

*Monday 23rd September – Guest Speaker Meeting. Louise Graham from CDAT Community Drug Action Team. Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.

*Monday 30th September – Social Night (5th Monday).

Sunday October 6th – Gears & Beers. Wollundry RC. Website

Monday 7th October – NO MEETING (October long weekend).

Sunday October 20th – Coolamon Garden Viewing

Saturday October 26th – Coolamon Garden Viewing

*Friday 25th/Sunday 27th October – D9705 Conference. Mittagong RSL. Bookings open now:

D9705 Conference

One of the highlights will be DG Michael Lapina, a treat indeed. Yes Michael the current D9800 District Governor, and I heard him sing at the Zone 8 Conference in Canberra. Michael and Heather McInally also had the Singapore Convention delegates give them a 6 minute standing ovation following their duet. As you know Heather is the wife of Past RI President Gordon McInally.

JUST FOR LAUGHS

All of the above images were obtained from Facebook.

ROTARY NEWS

1. Club provides an antidote to troubled times

By Diana Schoberg

Members of the Rotary Club of Springboro, Ohio (from left): Scott Marshall, Sarah Garrette, April Walker, and Doug Buchy.

Image credit: Meg Vogel

It was 2020 and the world was, as Sarah Garrette puts it, “a dumpster fire,” roiled by the global pandemic, unrest over police violence against Black Americans, and a divisive election in the United States. “I felt pretty isolated and wanted to give back, but I felt out of control with things happening in the culture and with the pandemic,” she says. “I thought, I can’t change the big things, but if I start on the microlevel — in the community — those little impacts add up.”

She hopped on Facebook and typed “volunteer opportunities” into the search bar. The Rotary Club of Springboro popped up.

Her dad had been a Rotary member, so Garrette reached out over Facebook. Because of the pandemic, meetings were held over videoconference, and she dropped in to check a few out. She found a dynamic group of people of all ages, about 50/50 women and men, who want to strengthen their community.

This thriving membership wasn’t always the case for the club. It chartered with 25 members in 2004, but by 2007, that number had shrunk, perilously, to 13. Doug Buchy, a member of the Rotary Club of Dayton, was asked to transfer his membership to help bring the Springboro club back to life. While he was Springboro club president in 2009-10, it grew to 17 members. “We stopped the bleed,” he says. “We kept growing and growing.” Today club membership stands at almost 40.

FULL STORY HERE

2. COOLAMON RC GLOBAL GRANT KENYA

Kisiriri Primary School Project Overview

Here is one example of how we as a club supported an education project in Kenya. The Lake Chelan RC from Washington State contacted us to ask for help in obtaining a Rotary Foundation Global Grant. This was in line with our Orphan Rescue Kit project to provide education and facilities to young and vulnerable children in Kenya.

The Project:

This is a school in dire need of Rotary help. Sanitation is poor, infrastructure is dilapidated, and new desks and school equipment is needed, and academic standards are low. The purpose of this project is to:

provide rain water harvesting as a means of providing a source of clean water. There will be two 350,000 litre tanks. One will be for the exclusive use of the school. The second will be available as a backup for the school and a source of clean water to community members. Community members will buy the water and the receipts will be used to fund maintenance costs. Collection of funds will use a cashless collection system enabling funds to be deposited directly in the school’s bank account.
install new roofing, facia boards and guttering to facilitate water collection
install underground piping to carry water from the roofs to the rain water collection tanks
renovate an existing school building. This will necessitate the replacement of the roofing, the building of a wall between two classrooms and the laying of a concrete floor. The building itself is sound and is concrete block construction
build 28 new biogas toilets with hand washing facilities (12 boys, 12 girls, 2 preschool, 2 teachers)
provide additional school desks for students
provide tables and chairs for teachers
provide basic curriculum text and writing books and materials for students and teachers
institute a mentorship program for pupils, teachers and the parents
install solar power (240vac) and solar lighting system for the school computer room.The computer room has power from the grid but it is turned off. The school does not have the funds to pay for power
provide access to the internet

In a second phase of the project, the plan is to provide a school library and equip it with books and access to the internet.

Here is how the global grant awas calculated and we contributed US $13,000 from our Road MAPS to Africa account.

Tell us about the funding you’ve secured for your project. We’ll use the information you enter here to calculate your maximum possible funding match from the World Fund.

#	Source	Details	Amount (USD)	Support*	Total

	Non-Rotarian contributions to be matched by TRF	Various	12,570.00	628.50	13,198.50
	Cash from Club	Milimani	3,000.00	150.00	3,150.00
	District Designated Fund (DDF)	5060	12,000.00	0.00	12,000.00
	Cash from Club	Okanogan-Omak	4,000.00	200.00	4,200.00
	Cash from Club	Wenatchee North	1,000.00	50.00	1,050.00
	District Designated Fund (DDF)	9700 Coolamon Rotary Club Australia	13,000.00	0.00	13,000.00
	Cash from Club	Chelan	48,200.00	2,410.00	50,610.00

*Whenever cash is contributed to the Foundation to help fund a global grant project, an additional 5 percent is applied to help cover the cost of processing these funds. Clubs and districts can receive Paul Harris Fellow recognition points for the additional expense.
THE RESULT: